AP, Reuters Omit Terror in Israel

On Nov. 8, the Associated Press released a list of “Recent Terror Attacks Around the World” to accompany reports on Saturday’s deadly bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The list notes Islamic terrorism all over the world since 1998, but completely ignores all Palestinian terrorist attacks that occurred in Israel. On Nov. 9, Reuters released a similar list of “Worst guerrilla attacks since September 11″ that also omitted terror in Israel entirely.
This is becoming a disturbing pattern in media chronicles of Islamic terror ? if it happened in Israel, it just doesn’t count: AP published a similar list of “Recent World Terror Attacks” on May 19, which also omitted attacks in Israel, and The New York Times Online devotes a special section to world terror that leaves Israel conspicuously absent. [In response to HonestReporting subscribers’ complaints, the Times adjusted not the content of the section, but rather its title, eliminating the word “terror.”]

Curiously, AP and Reuters do note the bombing of the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel in Kenya (11/2002). Certainly Kenya isn’t the first place that springs to mind when recalling recent Palestinian terror. Are we to conclude that these news agencies consider terror attacks against Israeli civilians in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem somehow less objectionable than those conducted offshore?

For a list of “major” Palestinian terror attacks in Israeli in the past years ? none of which are included in the AP or Reuters lists ? click here.

? On Sunday (Nov. 9), CBS’ 60 Minutes aired an investigative report entitled “Arafat’s Billions” that confirms Yassir Arafat’s secret portfolio worth more than $1 billion. Arafat’s personal fortune, the report reveals, has been almost entirely accumulated though embezzlement of tax revenues and handouts from the likes of Saddam Hussein, the KGB, and the Saudis. This, while the Palestinian population suffers from extreme poverty and lack of civilian infrastructure. 60 Minutes also reported that “Arafat transfers $100,000 a month from funds directed to the Palestinian Authority to his wife Suha,” who lives the good life in Paris.

? BBC (yes, the BBC) published a report that the PA, under Arafat’s direction, is paying members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades up to $50,000 a month. The al-Aksa Martyrs’ Brigade, which has admitted to at least 13 suicide bombings against Israeli citizens in the past three years, is almost always referred to in media reports as “loosely tied to Arafat’s Fatah faction” ? a description that exonerates Arafat from his active enabling of Palestinian terror.

HonestReporting encourages subscribers to commend CBS and BBC for their investigative work, and to encourage your local media to note Arafat’s corruption and active support for the al-Aksa Martyrs’ Brigade in forthcoming reports.

Another encouraging sign from the BBC: The Daily Telegraph reported today that the BBC has appointed a “senior editorial advisor” to oversee BBC coverage of the Mideast, due to ongoing criticism of BBC’s anti-Israeli bias. A real victory for HonestReporting media monitors!